


Worth It

by missmichellebelle



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M, Romance, fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris doesn’t say anything, and Darren feels like he’s exhaling all of his hope and fight and everything there on the doorstep. It isn’t an ending, but there’s a block in front of him, a wall too high and he doesn’t know how to start climbing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth It

Chris doesn’t stick around.

He smiles at the right people, shakes a few hands, and gives Ryan a hug, and then he’s slipping through the crowds and away. Darren watches him—it feels like that’s all he’s been doing lately, is  _watching_ , but he can’t make himself do anything else. He pastes on a smile and doesn’t go after Chris, the way his heart, his stomach—fuck—his entire  _body_  is telling him to.

But sometimes, Darren is a coward, so he stays where he is across the room until Chris’s familiar coif of hair disappears entirely. Guilt and regret settle bitter in Darren’s stomach, and something definitely like disappointment. But then there’s a hand on his shoulder, and Darren is smiling again.

Drinks are pressed into his hand, and he bounces from person to person, letting the liquor loosen his shoulders until everything feels more real, and the laughter comes a little easier.

*

It’s not how the night is supposed to go.

When Darren had slipped the knot of his tie tight to his neck and looked in the mirror, he’d promised himself,  _enough is enough_. It’s been radio silence for too long now, and Darren has sat up at night, head pressed too hard to the wall behind his bed, and tried to think of a way to just  _fix it_.

Sometimes, Darren is good at fixing things.

But it’s never the important things.

And  _fuck_ , this is  _so_  important.

He drinks, but he’s not drunk—but it’s enough that his judgement isn’t what it usually is, except maybe, for once, that’s the absolute best thing.

His phone is vibrating in his passenger seat for the billionth time, and Darren continues to ignore it. He’d disappeared, hadn’t said any sort of goodbye to anyone, and he really just misses the days when he could get in his car at 2am and  _drive_  and no one gave a fuck. It hasn’t been a half hour, and Darren feels like a leash around his neck is being pulled too tightly.

So he ignores it, and he does drive, only not like he used to. He doesn’t go far, and he doesn’t just drive in a straight line to clear his head. Maybe he meant to, but it’s not long before he’s on the familiar path, turning the car from muscle memory until he’s outside of Chris’s house, stalled at the curbside.

It’s a stupid thing to do, god it’s stupid, but there’s a part of him that just doesn’t care.

The lights are off, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Darren takes a deep breath, drives down to the next street, and parks in front of a random house. It’s one of the only times he thinks,  _damn I miss my old car_ , but at least this one still has dealership plates on it.

Shit, maybe he should have changed first.

He wonders if Chris is home, maybe the lights off  _does_  mean something.

He nearly stumbles into the wall that blocks in a backyard, and shakes his head, tugging at his tie until it’s looser. He doesn’t have anything, except for the car key pressed into the pocket of his pants—he left his phone on the passenger seat, his wallet tucked in the car door. He has a key to Chris’s house, dangling inconspicuously on his keyring, but that keyring is still sitting in his car, also.

And Darren isn’t even sure if he would want to use it, even if he had the metal pressed between his fingers. It doesn’t really feel like his anymore.

It feels weird to stand at Chris’s door in the dark, his suit rumpled, his tie loose, and his legs feeling wobbly beneath him. There’s that sudden strike of clarity, of  _fear_ , and Darren stares at the door like it’s the lid to Pandora’s box.

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

Somehow, he ends up knocking anyway.

And then knocks again.

And again.

A light flicks on inside, and Darren’s heart flutters like a bird—too fast—in his chest, trying to fly straight out of his throat. It makes him feel kind of nauseous, and he grips the doorframe to steady himself. He didn’t drink enough to be sick, but he knows the knots in his stomach aren’t alcohol related. They all have to do with Chris, who opens the door with a guarded look on his face, knuckles white where he holds onto the door.

It seems like a mistake, all of a sudden. Probably because Darren’s tongue feels swollen in his mouth and there don’t seem to be words.

 _I’m sorry_.

 _I didn’t mean it_.

“What do you want?” Chris’s voice is level, monotone,  _cold_ , and Darren can’t bear to look at him. He can’t bear to see Chris looking at him that way. He tugs on his tie, rakes fingers through his hair, feels like a fucking  _idiot_. What does he want?

“I want.” His voice feels rough, and he clears his throat, and stares at the drag of Chris’s pajama pants over the top of his foot. It’s a strange thing to get transfixed by, but Darren does, and his throat suddenly gets thick, his eyes glassy, and  _fuck_. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says, because he doesn’t know, and he covers his eyes because all of a sudden he just wants to cry.

Chris is silent, but he doesn’t slam the door in his face. Small graces.

“Are you drunk?” Chris asks, and Darren laughs bitterly.

“No,” he says—he’s buzzed at most, and the cold seeps into him and seems to draw the muddled mindset the alcohol brings out of Darren’s system. He draws in a ragged breath. “No, I’m not.”

“What do you  _want_ , Darren?” And Chris’s voice gives, just a little—tired, worn, and fuck, they both are, aren’t they? Darren is so fucking tired. “Want to stare at me some more and avoid eye contact every time I turn my head?” Chris’s words come sharper and sharper with each syllable that passes his lips.

“I wasn’t—” But he was, is the thing. Because he didn’t want Chris to know, but Chris  _always_  knows, knows the way Darren’s eyes feel as they brush over him. Darren just… Hadn’t wanted to see Chris’s eyes, afraid of what might be looking back at him. “I’m  _sorry_.”

And it’s not enough. It wasn’t enough days ago, hasn’t been enough since.

He’s shaking, and he isn’t sure if it’s the cold or the way his body seems to be collapsing in on itself.

Chris doesn’t say anything, and Darren feels like he’s exhaling all of his hope and fight and  _everything_  there on the doorstep. It isn’t an ending, but there’s a block in front of him, a wall too high and he doesn’t know how to start climbing it.

“I’ll—” Why is he even there? He steps back, head still hung, and then feels a pressure against his wrist. It’s tight enough to draw him to a stop, and familiar, and there’s only one person there to stop him from tucking his tail between his legs and retreating. Darren chances a look up, but Chris is staring at where his hand is pressed to Darren’s cuff, as if he’s not sure what it’s doing there.

“I miss you,” Darren says, a little hysterical, a lot desperate, and he sees Chris’s throat bob and it just—it’s the first time in too long that he’s been close enough to see, close enough to talk. It’s the first time Chris has talked  _to_  him and not just  _around_  him, and Darren’s chest feels tight with it. “God, I fucking… I miss you, and I don’t—I’m such a fucking idiot, I’m stupid, okay? You always tell me, and we laugh, but fuck if it’s not so unbelievably true—”

“Stop it.” It’s not sharp, it’s not cold, it’s  _pleading_ , and this time, when Darren looks up, Chris is looking right back at him. “Will you just…  _Stop_. This isn’t just you, this is never _just_  you, Darren, and it’s…” Chris squeezes his eyes shut tight, and then tugs on Darren’s wrist. “We can’t do this out here.”

Because Chris has neighbors, and there are ears everywhere, and then the door is closing behind him. They stand in the foyer, silent, and then Chris jerks his head and Darren is following him to the living room, to the kitchen, arms tight around himself because suddenly all he wants to do is  _touch_. Chris’s house is familiar, a comfort,  _god_ , it  _smells_  like him, and Darren wants to drop to the carpet and just lie there and never leave again.

But he sits down in one of the barstools, fingers gripping his pants, and stares at the granite until Chris pushes a cup of water in front of him.

“Drunk or not, you’re lying out of your ass if you tell me you didn’t drink.”

Darren sips the water, feeling guilty as if he’d lied, even if he hadn’t.

Chris’s hands are splayed on the granite, bright against the dark contrast, and then he sighs.

“I never said I was sorry,” he says, and Darren looks up, because—well, he hadn’t expected an apology. Chris doesn’t need to apologize. Darren is the one who fucked up, Darren is  _always_  the one who fucks up.

“You—”

“No.” Chris stares him down, hard, and Darren swallows down his words and more water. “Darren… Fuck.” Chris ruffles his own hair. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Bullshit.”

“Shut the  _fuck_  up,” Chris snarls.

“I  _started_  it, Chris.”

“Yeah, and I finished it, didn’t I?”

Darren falls silent, biting his lip.

“We do this dance, Darren. This isn’t the first time. And sometimes I need  _time_ , fuck. I need  _space_. You fume for a few hours, a day, and then you’re there, trying to fix everything and—you  _can’t_  fix this, you can’t.”

“I can’t?” His voice cracks, and Darren touches his throat, rubbing it as if that will loosen it.

“Do you want it to be this way? Do you want  _us_  to be this way?”

“No, of course not, of course I—”

“Then how do you plan to fix it?”

Neither of them speak, because there isn’t an answer. There is nothing Darren can do to make it go away, nothing Chris can do, there is no solution that isn’t messy and complicated and sometimes Darren stares at the ceiling and  _tries_.

Sometimes he wants to trade all of it, everything, because it’s better than letting it all just happen. He just lets things be this way, and he hates himself for it.

And when he hates himself, when it becomes too much, it turns around and he sticks it on Chris like he’s  _blaming_  him.

_Life wasn’t supposed to fucking be this way. Things weren’t supposed to happen like this._

He loves Chris. And then he throws that love back at him on the worst days, like it’s _nothing_. Like it  _burns_. Like it’s the last thing Darren wants and it’s the biggest lie in the world.

And Chris is staring at him, and he knows. Because Darren’s done it before, and he’ll probably do it again, and Chris’s lip will curl and he’ll spit back all the things that Darren is and all the things he doesn’t want to hear.

They hurt each other in the worst ways, because they know each other in ways other people can’t even fathom. They know those deep, dark places, the places that are the weakest, the places that hurt the most when they’re hit.

It’s not their worst fight, but every time it could be. Every time, Chris could decide not to look past and understand. Every time, Darren could decide it’s too much.

Every time, they seem to surprise themselves and pull through.

Because Darren’s terrified, and Chris’s hand is shaking slightly against the granite.

“This isn’t just your choice,” Chris finally says. “We made it together, we  _make_  it together every day. Both of us. We give up things, we sacrifice, and we have to tell ourselves every night that it’s worth it.”

Darren knows, because this isn’t the first time Chris has said this to him. It’s a reminder, because Darren has that bit of a hero complex, wants to shoulder it all until he’s the bad guy. Because he feels like a villain, doing what he does to Chris.

Chris’s hand moves, and his fingertips press into the side of Darren’s hand.

“Is it worth it tonight?”

 _Yes_. Even on the nights where Darren can’t even seem to  _think_  around everything, when he lays back against the pillows and stares at the ceiling because somehow the _ceiling_  is supposed to have answers—he sees Chris’s eyes on the back of his eyelids, and  _yes_. How could it ever not be worth it?

How could Chris  _ever_  not be worth it?

Darren looks up from his glass of water, up from Chris’s touch, and Chris looks scared. Because one day, one of them could say no.

Darren knows that, if that day ever comes, it will probably be Chris. Because Chris deserves more, will  _always_  deserve more, and Darren is far too selfish to let him go.

He stands, slowly, and Chris’s hand stays still on the counter. And Darren should speak, but his words don’t work, and he knows what Chris is thinking—Darren knows what he’d be thinking, if he was the one who asked, if Chris was the one silently standing. It makes him feel sick, so he doesn’t hesitate or go slow.

He takes those few steps around the counter, presses dry, cold hands to Chris’s cheeks and watch him shrink from the chill. And then Darren kisses him, and  _god_ , not kissing Chris for so many days is a torture he is subjected to too often without his consent, why does he  _ever_  let it happen because of him?

“Always,” he breathes against Chris’s lips, curling his face into Chris’s neck and _breathing_. And Darren means it, because he can’t imagine a night where the answer will ever be different. “Always, always, always.” And he peppers kisses along the curve of Chris’s neck, up the length of it to his jaw.

“This isn’t the end,” Chris whispers, and it means so much, those few words. It isn’t the end of them, but it isn’t the end of anything else either. Darren presses his hand over Chris’s heart, knows that things aren’t this easy—there are still words they need to undo, wounds they need to close up, space that needs to be given.

But Chris’s hand closes around his waist and it makes Darren want to cry.

“No,” Darren agrees, eyelashes catching against Chris’s skin as he slowly blinks. “But it’s worth it.” Chris’s fingers curve into the space between Darren’s, sandwiched between them, pressed to Chris’s heartbeat. “We’re worth it.” Darren breathes in, long and slow, and staring at Chris across a crowded room seems years ago when he’s pressed up against him this way.

“You’re worth it,” he says, like a promise, and Chris seals it with a kiss.


End file.
